THE GIRL FROM PUSSYCAT
… AND THREE LITTLE KITTENS !
Penny Candie had problems.
Men seemed to start riots over her wherever she went, for one thing. But that she could take in her swingy stride -- it was part of the normal life of a healthy, sexy blonde.
Women were another matter, and one that really had her in a whirl. Penny was on the spot in choosing a temporary editor for Lovelights magazine. Sappho, Marie, or Annie? They were all dizzyingly attractive, and all dizzyingly oddball. And Penny was dizzy. ..
But that was only the beginning. Our accident-prone female bombshell was due for another hectic hayride through New York’s hippest and hottest spots — and a new series of whirling misadventures that would leave her even more wound up than before.
Here’s the whole story--told as only Ted (The Man from O.R.G.Y.) Mark can tell it!
From Berkeley to Boston, hip readers are asking...
WHO IS TED MARK?
He’s the man of mystery behind the Man from O.R.G.Y. and other improbable characters, the author of the decade’s most hilarious bestsellers, the creator of a
craze that’s sweeping the country!
Read his books...and you’ll ask, too!
PUSSYCAT, PUSSYCAT !
Ted Mark
1966
CHAPTER ONE
THE BOOBY-BOUNCING Season closes with Indian Summer. It’s then that the outdoor spectator sport enjoys one last spurt of eye-dancing activity. Indian Summer finds the young bucks turning out en masse to ogle the passing maids along lunchtime Fifth Avenue. Out for one last look before the figurative fig leaves begin to fall, they travel in pairs, using an elbow-to-rib signal like the sudden quiver of a bird-dog alerting the hunter. Like pointers in tandem, they stalk their prey and swap grunts as to the perfection of the pelt under scrutiny. Under their gaze, the young females of the white-collar tribe fall into one of three categories: over-bra’d, loose-bra’d, and bra-less.
Such classifications are a matter of expert judgment measuring the precise arc of horizontal jiggle, vertical joggle, angle of dangle, distortion of wool-wiggle where sweaters are worn, the effect of cleavage spacing on bosom bounce, and allowance for slipperiness of mammarian wriggle due to perspiration. Also, the experienced eye must evaluate breast-tip shadows and strap outlines, must distinguish between nature and its imitation by diabolically gifted brassiere designers, must differentiate -- and from obscured evidence-—-between bra-straps, slip-straps, and the white-on-tan flesh left over from a summer swimsuit. All in all, it’s no wonder that the Booby-Bouncing Season is prime time for development of the observational faculties of the male New Yorker.
This particular noontime, quite a few of the bodice-piercing eyes widened approvingly at the young blonde in the silk blouse standing at the bus stop in the Fifties. Some of the orbs popped with strain as her bosom rippled enticingly in the breeze from the passing traffic. Bra-less without at doubt, the experts decided, and tossed visions back behind their eyeballs, exaggerated imaginings of swelling fleshy melons on the point of bursting the deep V neckline which really did reveal the ) ( outline of the breasts.
Penny Candie ignored them. She was used to the stares her mammarian parentheses garnered in a culture conditioned by too-early weaning. Besides, her mind was on something else. She was concerned about the brown paper bag suspended from her scarlet-lacquered fingertips.
Her concern had started about an hour before when she had ransacked the mid-Manhattan offices of Pussycat Publications in a vain search for a bottle. A milk bottle, a jar, a cider jug, a paste pot, even a Coke bottle—although that might have presented certain problems—any of these would have better suited her purpose than the cardboard coffee container for which she’d finally had to settle. Alas, bottle-wise, the Pussycat cupboards had been as bare as a Schenley warehouse during Prohibition. So now, waiting for the bus, her anxiety centered upon the paper container in the brown bag she carried.
The container had sprung a leak. A dark stain widening over the bottom of the bag testified to that. Gingerly, Penny spread one palm underneath it, fearful that the container might fall through.
Penny’s predicament inspired one of her sidewalk admirers to action. Like a splitting amoeba, he separated his elbow from his companion’s rib cage and started for the distressed girl. “Watch me operate!” dribbled out of the corner of his mouth as he separated himself from his fellow girl-watcher and slithered across the pavement to Penny. “Excuse me, Miss, but your box is leaking,” he said when he reached her.
“It’s not a box,” Penny said hastily as several startled glances turned her way. “It’s a container. A coffee container.”
“That doesn’t look like coffee.”
Penny made a point of ignoring him.
“It doesn’t smell like coffee, either,” he sniffed.
Penny turned one haughty hip on him; the hip said it was really none of his business.
Not hip to the language of hips, the young man persisted. He prodded the soggy brown bag. “And it sure doesn’t feel like coffee.”
Penny restrained herself from asking him how coffee was supposed to feel and tapped her heel impatiently, wishing the bus would come so she could be rid of this pest.
“I’ll bet it’s not coffee at all" he deduced, summing up the evidence. “Nope! It’s not coffee! Is it?”
“No, it’s not.” Penny’s tone said her words were supposed to end the conversation.
“I knew it! What is it? Wait! Don’t tell me! I’ll bet I can guess.”
“Never in a million years,” Penny couldn’t help murmuring.
“Don’t be so sure. I only gamble on sure things. I’ll tell you what. I’ll make you a sporting proposition.”
“On Fifth Avenue? In broad daylight?” Penny’s innocent blue eyes grew big and round.
“That’s not what I mean. I say I can tell what’s leaking out of that bag in three guesses. And I’m willing to bet on it. If I’m right, you give me your phone number.”
“And if you’re wrong?”
“I’ll go away quietly and quit bothering you.”
“That’s the only thing you could have said that would make the whole thing worthwhile. Okay. It’s a bet.”
He reached out and prodded the soggy spot with his thumb. Then, when the thumb glistened with the wetness, he rubbed it against his forefinger as if testing the consistency. “Chicken soup!” he said positively.
“Wrong,” Penny told him.
He reached out again and scraped at the bottom of the bag with his fingertips. Then he held them under his nose and inhaled deeply, appraisingly. “Sauerkraut, or sauerkraut juice!” he announced firmly.
“Wrong again,” Penny purred.
Nettled, he held his open palm out under the bag for a moment. When a few drops of the liquid dribbling from the bag collected there, he carefully raised the hand to his mouth. He stuck his tongue out, tasted it, and then, with brow furrowed, he licked the palm clean. He puzzled over the flavor for a long moment, and when he spoke it was tentatively. “Something fishy,” he mused. “Yes, salt-water fishy. And clammy, too.” He snapped his fingers and took the plunge. “Clam juice, or some sort of clam dip!” he insisted triumphantly.